Lead weights are commonly used in balancing automobile wheels, and generally include an arcuately shaped elongated body made of lead, the degree of curvature corresponding to the curvature of the wheel rim, and a clip secured to the body for attaching the weight to the wheel rim.
Lead weights have commonly been made on machines having molds into which molten lead is injected and in which the clip is positioned. Manual procedures are utilized for operation of these apparatus including manual positioning of the clips in the mold and manual closing of the mold. Such procedures are time consuming, and dangerous to the operator due to the proximity of the bath of molten lead to the mold cavity in which the clips are positioned, and residual heat in the weight immediately after formation thereof. The rate of production of these manually operated machines is determined by the speed of the operator, leading to wide variations which may effect production schedules. Further, existing lead weight-making machines suffer from the drawback that the weights have a "tail", corresponding to the cooled lead present after cooling, in the molten lead feed line leading to the mold. The "tails" must be removed after cooling in a separate, time consuming, procedure to provide a useable lead weight